Forget any consecutive French title, The Changeling, completely irrelevant for this film, in which there is no mention of the devil. And do not confuse with the penultimate Eastwood Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie .
First, what is this strange word, changeling? Literally, it's a baby who is used to secretly take the place of another baby. Perhaps the French translators they had mistaken The Omen, where the stillbirth of the character played by Lee Remick was exchanged with the devil himself.
In The Changeling, Canadian film from 1980 directed by Peter Medak, director Romeo Is Bleeding of (1993) and numerous TV series (one episode of Masters of Horror ), John Russell, a composer played by George C. Scott attends helplessly as the car accident that kills his wife and daughter. Yielding to the encouragement of a couple of friends, he settled in the Seattle area and rented a historic mansion, where he plans to write and rest.
In this house, huge and vacant for 12 years, John is soon confronted with sound strange events, and will be contacted by the ghost of a young boy who tries to give him his horrible secret. This
is striking in this horror film clean is the rejection of stereotypes. The supernatural events do not occur in the dark but in broad daylight. Fear arises in the everyday and the most common objects become threatening. Like another great movie The Haunting (1963), the suggestion, the invisible, sound processing, marking more spirit than any monster dripping.
Why this film is it now forgotten while his influence on later generations is undeniable ? Hard to say.
However, it is high time to rediscover in The Changeling DVD (available only in Zone 1 for now) and fun to note the involuntary affiliations with the masterpiece of Kubrick released the same year, The Shining.
